Desertification drawings

An AHRC funded residency and exhibition at Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal, responding to a landscape undergoing desertification. The work responds to a central theme of ‘loss’: loss of people, of memories and of a sense of place. The exhibition installation included three ‘Light drawings’, which were produced with pin pricks on maps by connecting all the habitations in the region – and by projecting the resulting ‘drawing’.

A large ‘Slip Drawing’, was produced by using clay and water to draw numerical data about the topography of the landscape: its height above sea level. Slip – which is a mixture of clay and water – is unstable, it will revert back to a fine clay powder and drop off the paper in response to heat. Over time, the drawing will fade and disappear, mirroring the process of desertification.